


Night After Night

by idrilhadhafang



Series: Liquid Realities [5]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst Bingo, Archangel Network, Domestic Violence, F/M, Gen, Implied Domestic Violence, Implied Torture, Mind Rape, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, aftermath of domestic violence, attempts to write lucy saxon, offscreen mind rape, trigger warning for domestic violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-17
Updated: 2012-06-17
Packaged: 2017-11-07 23:32:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/436643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and Lucy Saxon are prisoners of the Master in different ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night After Night

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing.
> 
> Written for angst bingo, for the prompt "possession". Warnings for potentially triggering mentions of domestic violence, implied torture and mind rape.

The Doctor doesn’t know how long he’s been kept in this place. Technically, he thinks it should be about a year or so, but even now, he still can’t believe it. Still can’t believe that it’s been that long. The days seem to blur together into weeks, and weeks into months, and months into...well, a year, to say the least. Otherwise, he can’t quite say how long it’s been.

 

The Master, as usual, seems to be enjoying his reign a bit too much for the Doctor’s liking. Terrorizing the Jones family – and the Tylers, who he captured recently. He’s been asking for Rose’s whereabouts. They don’t know, but he keeps interrogating them.

 

It’s after a particularly brutal torture session that the Doctor turns to reassure them. He almost doesn’t recognize Jackie; she seems almost frightened, terrified, even fragile, a far cry from the outspoken woman he knew. And Pete – if anything, Pete looks broken. The Doctor wants to kill the Master, wants to get up and simply  _kill_  him – if he raises another hand against those the Doctor loves – but he knows he can’t. Jack will most likely get killed again – or worse, someone else might get killed.

 

“He mentioned something about Rose being out there,” Jackie said, “Where is she, Doctor? Is she all right?”

 

“She’s all right. She’s still fighting.”

 

Jackie smiles now – a watery smile, but a smile nonetheless. “I just hope she gets back soon."

  
  
"As do I." 

 

But for a moment there, there's a moment of hope between them, in this desolate place called the  _Valiant_. Some degree of relief.

 

 

***

Lucy Saxon knows all too well that her husband is insane.

 

If one walked up to her years ago and told her such, she would have brushed it off. Harry was just so...charming when they first met. Good to her father, gentle towards her...but that’s changed.

 

He took her to see the end of the universe itself. He took her there, made her watch the universe collapse in on itself, watch the people dying. Fires, death, pain – she begged him to stop, to take her back home (so to speak). Harry didn’t listen, of course. 

 

Or the man that had been Harry didn’t listen, that is. For even there, looking into the eyes of the man she had married, Lucy Saxon knew that that wasn’t Harry anymore. Just a demon wearing his face.

 

 

 

 

When he told the Doctor about it, of course, he made a note to gloat about it. To say how it was all the Doctor's fault it happened. And the look in the Doctor's eyes, that look of guilt, of fear, of shame for something that he couldn't have possibly stopped, over something that her husband did (and yet her husband had the gall to blame it all on him) -- she almost felt the urge to come forward, to comfort him, to defend him, to say it wasn't his fault even though some part of her was still asking, "But why?" But she was frozen in her fear.

 

 

 

Harry's behavior has gotten worse the past year. The complaints about the drumming. The parts where he’s gripped her hard enough to leave bruises. Gripped her wrists as well. The fights. She’s tried to cover the bruises, of course, but even now, the Doctor’s seen – she saw the look of utter shock, of utter pity in his face when he saw her, when he was sent to watch Jack Harkness be executed.

 

She still remembers the fight afterwards, winces as the bruise on her eye throbs – it’s healing, at least, if slowly. The memory of his words is worse, condemning, accusing, cutting –

 

It’s later that night, frustrated at her inability to sleep, that she goes to visit the Doctor. One of her husband’s favorite prisoners, she’s learned. At the very least, her husband seems to take the most pleasure in torturing him. She can still hear the faint, strained, almost maniacal-sounding laugh from the dog-kennel-esque prison where he’s being kept.

 

It’s enough to make her want to back away. And yet she walks on. She wants to apologize, at the very least, for what happened with Jack. Wants to apologize for what her husband’s been doing.

 

Or rather, the man who was her husband. The man who claimed to be her husband. All of that had changed the day the Toclaphane had invaded Earth.

 

Muttering. Laughing. The Doctor looks up at her as she draws near, smiles, but even then, Lucy can’t say that she likes the smile. There’s something...not right about it. Something wrong with the Doctor’s eyes, almost like insanity is about to be unleashed.

 

“Hello, Mrs. Saxon.” He tries to sound cheerful. Lucy almost wants to tell him not to do it; it doesn’t suit him. And that’s probably putting it mildly.

 

“Hello,” She tries to at least sound polite. Steady. Like she’s not shaking inside. “Are you all right?”

 

He laughs, weakly. “Not very.”

 

Even now, Lucy knows what happened – the Projector. That...thing her husband had used on the Doctor. The thing that showed one’s worst memories, fears – from what her husband had said. Her husband had called her “not very bright” more than once – even delusional. Perhaps she wasn’t – not quite, that is. But she couldn’t say she didn’t try.

 

“Here now.” The Doctor tries to draw away even as she applies a cloth to the other wounds the Master inflicted on him. The whip wounds, as if the torture of the Projector wasn’t bad enough. “No, it’s all right,” she says, “It’s just...” She sighs. “It’s just best not to let those get infected.”

 

“I’ve seen worse.” He tries to smile again – it’s almost heartbreaking, how he seems to put on this façade of “it’s all right”, even though inside, inside and outside alike, he’s bleeding. Perhaps in that regard, they are the same.

 

It’s almost frightening.

 

Lucy laughs, if slightly. “It’s still a good idea, I think.”

 

She dabs at the wounds with the cloth. The Doctor hisses in pain, and though she tries to draw away, fearful that she’s hurt him, he merely gives her another reassuring grin. “It’s all right, it’s all right. It just...stings.”

 

She continues to tend to his wounds.

 

“Thank you...”

 

“Lucy,” she says, “Call me Lucy.”

 

“Right. Thank you, Lucy – although I can’t help but ask...why are you doing this for me?”

 

Silence.

 

“Because you’re not the only one he’s keeping prisoner. Because it wasn't your fault what he did." The look in his eyes seems to be a cross between explosive joy and utter relief and yet confusion, confusion and anger and fear. "And," Lucy adds hesitantly, "because you were kind to me.” It sounds so awkward to say, and yet...

 

“It’s nothing more than I could do.” Then his voice grows darker, more serious. “I saw the way he treats you. Your eye – he did that to you, didn’t he?”

 

Almost defensively, Lucy says, “It’s not his fault. It’s the...he says that the drums inside his head – I think – he’s not himself – ’’

“I can’t say he’s been himself for quite a while,” the Doctor says, darkly.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“The two of us used to be...friends on Gallifrey. His old home planet.”

 

Even now, the words of the reporter flood back to her.  _All of it-the schooldays, his degree, even his mother and father- it's all invented! _ She remembers Vivian Rook telling her how Harry wasn’t who he said he was -- something she had already known, in a way, when she first met him. How Harry had confirmed it to Rook, with the reveal of the Toclaphane. How she had stayed with him, because she had cared for him too much to do otherwise.

 

“I was so stupid,” she says, “I should have known. I should have realized – ’’

 

“You weren’t stupid. The Master...he’s always been quite hypnotic. And with the Archangel network – I think he’s managed to up it on a massive scale.”

 

“Maybe,” she says. She sighs. “I should have noticed something was off. I thought something was a bit off – but he was so charming, so gracious, that I just...I didn’t see.”

 

“He excels at that,” the Doctor says, bitterly.

 

The bell rings. “You’d best leave,” he says, “If the Master catches you – I just don’t want you to get hurt because of me. And...thank you, Lucy Saxon. For helping me.”

 

She merely nods, before leaving, quickly. She can only suppress a sigh of relief as she makes it safely back to her room. Even now, listening from inside her room, she can hear Harry talking about something, she doesn’t know what, except for the snippets of “New York” and “uprisings every day” and “the Toclaphane may need to deal with it”. Even hearing about it, she cannot help but shiver.

 

But for the first time in a while, even speaking with the Doctor – she cannot help but have a measure of hope. It’s terrifying at the same time, and yet...

 

Harold Saxon will not crush them. Harold Saxon will not make them “obey” him.

 

Harold Saxon will not break them, no matter what he does. 


End file.
